What distinguishes Creative Capital from more traditional funders?
Now in our second decade, Creative Capital continues to consider itself the premiere provider of risk capital in the arts—taking chances on projects that are singularly bold, innovative and genre-stretching. We want to support the latest thinking in the field: ideas of scope and ambition expressed through audacious combinations of form and content; varied projects that engage or even create new technologies; and works that take traditional approaches into new territories, teaching us something new about the world and ourselves. We often provide early support for projects that initially have challenges receiving funding from other sources. Continue reading →

Media artist Julia Christensen (2013 Emerging Fields) is making DIY projectors out of discarded iPhones. In this video, she introduces her project Burnouts, which is part of a series of works supported by Creative Capital that explore our cultural relationship with e-waste.

On October 2, Creative Capital Artists Juan William Chávez, Julia Christensen, Robert Karimi and Kerry Skarbakka present with Ruby Lerner at IdeaFestival, a celebration for the intellectually curious that takes place each fall in Louisville, KY. This is the fifth year that Creative Capital has presented a session entitled “Art on the Edge” to introduce the diverse audiences at this international convening to the work of four remarkable artistic innovators. Sam Van Aken, also a Creative Capital awardee, will present a separate session, “Disruptive Thinking and a Hole in the Sky,” on October 3. Both presentations take place at 10:30am EST. You can read profiles of all the artists on the IdeaFestival website and follow the presentations live on Twitter (#IF14).

In conjunction with IdeaFestival, 21c Museum Hotel is presenting 21c Celebrates Creative Capital: A 15th Anniversary Exhibition, featuring the work of 18 Creative Capital awardees including Peggy Ahwesh, Nick Cave, Chris Doyle, Simone Leigh, Eve Sussman, and the five artists presenting in this year’s IdeaFestival. The exhibition, which opens on September 30 and runs through March 2015, includes an installation of Julia Christensen’s Burnouts project, a series of projectors made out of recycled iPhones. Continue reading →

On April 17, Susan Robb (2013 Emerging Fields) will embark on a five-month adventure from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. This marks the culmination of her Creative Capital-supported project, Wild Times, which merges new media, social engagement and a 2,650-mile hike to explore wildness as a geographic ideal and a state of mind. I connected with Susan to learn more about this project and her preparations for the trek.

Jenny Gill:Wild Times centers around the importance of untouched wilderness and the notion of “wildness” as an antidote to the stress and structure of modern life. You live in a major city (Seattle). Do you struggle to stay connected to the wild in your day-to-day life?

Susan Robb: The “wild” I’m most interested in is the internal space, the interior dialogue, the autonomous sense of self. In the same way that geographic wild spaces are endangered, I believe the internal, personal ones are endangered as well. A person can feel the struggle and stress of modern life regardless of whether they live in a city or not. Continue reading →

Fallen Fruit (2013 Emerging Fields) presented their project Endless Orchard at the 2013 Creative Capital Artist Retreat. Endless Orchard is a non-contiguous map of fruit trees in public space which will become “a public fruit portal, creating a public fruit map that indexes the largest collection of public fruit trees in the world.” You can watch more artist presentations from the Retreat on our Vimeo channel.

Susan Robb (2013 Emerging Fields) presents her project Wild Times at the 2013 Creative Capital Artist Retreat. Wild Times is a work of land art that takes its form as a thru-hike from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail. Susan Robb will invite environmental policy makers, writers, activists, performers and poets to join her for sections of the 2,650-mile journey. You can watch more artist presentations from the Retreat on our Vimeo channel.